Students occupied roads in London and demonstrated in Leeds over plans to burden students with tens of thousands of pounds of debt.

The figures are plain. The government wants to reduce the funding of university places by up to 90%. The consequences for higher education are devastating.

The government, along with their lieutenants in the Russell Group are enthusiastically posing this massacre as giving ‘choice’ back to students. The ‘choice’ whether or not to end up with £50k debt for a degree.

With the government set to slash all funding except to departments considered vital to their interests (Engineering, Health), the humanities will return to being the playground of the privileged few who have pockets deep enough to ‘make the choice’ to pay for university.

No-one who has been campaigning for the past year against the £35m cuts at Leeds Uni was surprised by VC Michael Arthur’s unseemly enthusiasm for the Browne recommendations live on Channel 4 last night.

The breaking up and marketisation of Higher education comes at the same time as the national roll-out of Academies for secondary and primary schools.

Students and staff know that this attack on education is just the first offensive in the bosses’ efforts to smash the welfare state, privatising it to pay for the £1 trillion bank bailouts.

Yesterday students across the country sent the message loud and clear to the millionaire coalition that we won’t take this lying down.

LUAC will be joining thousands of students in London on 10.11.10 for a demonstration with NUS and UCU to protest against attacks on jobs and education.

Read the Browne Review here

See anticuts.com for more details of yesterday’s events and to get involved in building a national resistance.

Cuts and resistance will definitely be the watchword on campus this year, which is why Leeds University Against Cuts is back on the road, prepared for action after the giant attacks on Education announed by the Tories over the summer

Last year’s campaign against the £35m cuts had notable victories, particularly over the rightwing, anti-strike Union Exec. See Motion 1 Falls.

Freshers fair was very successful, with many old and new students volunteering on stalls and leafletting.

Cuts and resistance will definitely be the watchword on campus this year. Last year’s campaign against the £35m cuts had notable victories, particularly over the rightwing, anti-strike Union Exec. See Motion 1 Falls

However the cuts have not gone away, and with the Con-Dem coalition slashing the Education Budget we have already seen 200,000 people turned away from university this year.

LUAC has held its first meetings, which were well attended by students from across the uni, representing many groups and individuals.

The tone of meetings has been very positive, with a recap on the successes and failures of last year, and a desire to build on the progress made and go on to build a genuinely mass movement of students to stop the cuts.

With several local and national demonstrations coming up, and public meetings planned by LUAC there is enough going on to use everyone’s talents.

Our weekly organising meetings are 5pm in one of the union meeting rooms.

More specific details relating to planned events/activities can be found on the LUAC facebook page

Please get in touch if you have any questions at info.luac@gmail.com

The Campaigns and Democracy department assure us that it was nothing but a casual typo and, except for Education First, we have no reason to doubt them. The next Newsletter will mention the mistake in the last, and the website contains this correction:

Oops – how embarrassing! We apologise for any confusion caused in this week’s email newsletter (sent Thursday 29th April). We incorrectly wrote that Motion 1 ‘Should LUU oppose industrial action on campus that negatively impacts on the education of students?’ had passed in the referendum when it actually failed. We are very sorry for our error.

Embarrassing indeed, particularly as the defeat of Motion 1 represents LUU’s unequivocal rejection of the anti-lecturer, anti-strike attitudes promoted by the outgoing Exec since the ‘economies exercise’ was announced.

So just to make it clear: Motion 1 failed. LUU will not oppose industrial action, it has no democratic grounds to do so.

Meanwhile the campaign against cuts goes on, with the proposed closure of the Latin, Greek and Classics degree programmes announced recently.

The fight to defend education at Leeds goes hand in hand with the fight to create a more democratic, campaigning union that organises students to stand up for our interests collectively rather than using us as a tool in the management’s attack on our staff.

“The Department with much regret and in response to severe economic
pressures, has formally proposed to the School of Humanities (21/4/10)
that the full degrees in Greek, Latin and Classics should be discontinued, with a final intake in September 2010.

The proposal was considered by the School and is now being referred upwards to the Faculty of Arts. So the present position is that Classics has made a proposal, and we are awaiting the outcome.”

Although a decision may not be made for several months, students at Leeds need to act now, to bring pressure on management not to make cuts to education.

The 6-figure salaries of the university management, along with the multi-million £ building  programme that Michael Arthur in his infinite wisdom has embarked upon, represent huge sums of money that would be better spent keeping staff on the payroll, students in their lectures, and knowledge in the air.

Get involved in the fight to defend classics at Leeds here

]]> http://leedsuniversityagainstcuts.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/classics-dept-is-latest-casualty-of-economies-excercise/feed/ 1 leedsuniversityagainstcuts http://leedsuniversityagainstcuts.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/motion-1-falls-a-victory-for-students-and-staff/ http://leedsuniversityagainstcuts.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/motion-1-falls-a-victory-for-students-and-staff/#comments Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:07:22 +0000 leedsuniversityagainstcuts http://leedsuniversityagainstcuts.wordpress.com/?p=201 ]]> Motion 1, put forward by LUU Education Officer Mike Gladstone, which would have undermined legal and democratic strikes held by Unions on campus, has failed!

The motion, which stated, “Should LUU oppose industrial action on campus that negatively impacts on the education of students?” was voted down after a campaign by Leeds Uni Against Cuts urging students not to betray their lecturers and to vote no to Motion 1.

With this vote the student body and membership of LUU have sent out a clear message to uni management and LUU exec that they support the right to strike and that they reject the attempts of our Executive to legitimise anti-strike sentiments in our Union. This doesn’t mean that we unequivocally support the motive behind every strike but crucially it means we rejected a motion which would be betraying our staff and attacking their democratic right to take industrial action.

The results of all the motions can be seen here

Massive thanks to everyone who voted against the motion! This victory is the final defeat of the LUU exec that gave us such gems as Education First – the LUAC group can go into the summer break confident that although there remains much to be done, the potential on campus presents great opportunities.

LUU should support UCU, Unison and Unite in their action to defend jobs, defend education and defend the University.

Again, thanks to everyone who voted and helped on the campaign, and to people who didn’t vote – get involved in the campaign against cuts and the struggle for a democratic, fighting students’ union.

National Campaign speaker tour leaflet

The latest leg of the tour stopped in Leeds which recently saw a campaign by students and staff against £35million worth of cuts which could have seen 700 jobs and several departments go to the wall. The escalating campaign at Sussex was inspirational to the Leeds Uni Against Cuts group, so the chance to listen to and question a Sussex student about the finer points of their successes was not to be missed.

Tabitha from Sussex gave an excellent and detailed account of the build-up to the protests, and the various aspects of the campaign – ranging from organising solidarity directly with the Trade Union rank-and-file on campus and in Brighton, to co-ordinating a campaign that saw 800 students turn out in support of the Sussex 6 and force the Vice-chancellor to reverse their suspension.

Details about the methods and tactics of organising an occupation were debated, with a focus on the Sussex way of ‘flash occupations’ for 24 hours which were used to raise awareness. The heavy-handed crackdown by uni bosses which saw riot police used on campus and six occupiers suspended galvanised the Sussex campaign and drew wider layers of students into activity.

A question-and-answer session which followed expanded on the details of carrying out a successful campaign, and drew on the experiences of Sussex to draw conclusions about the successes and failures at Leeds. There was interest in the kind of campaigning that was most effective – whether there was a focus on demonstrations and occupations, or organising meetings.

A contribution from the floor by Jerry Hicks, a member of the trade union Unite, raised the beneficial prospects of making links with the trade union movement in media in order to attract more sustained, positive coverage with a higher profile.

Concerns were raised over the role of the NUS – the clear difference between Leeds and Sussex being that LUU have maintained an anti-strike, anti-lecturer attitude ever since launching Education First and are now trying to legitimise that position with Motion 1, while Sussex students enjoyed the support of a progressive students’ union.

The two issues that came our most strongly from the meeting was the growing need for a national, fighting students’ union that can generalise the experience of local victories and organise to unite a mass student resistance to billions of pounds of education cuts due to fall this autumn.

The second was the need for a student-led campaign on campus that can organise students to fight for education themselves, one that can challenge the managements and SU bureaucrats and careerists, to build a student movement that not only fights to defend education but raises the question of who controls our campuses – the students and staff or the over-paid under-worked vice-chancellors who take pay rises while condemning hundreds of staff to the dole queue.

This report appeared originally at worldrevolution.org.uk

’100 students storm board of governors meeting and confront management, 40 now occupying VC’s office and are not going to leave!’

Leeds University Against Cuts today voted overwhelmingly to offer our solidarity with students in occupation at Westminster uni. We stand side-by-side with them in our united resistance to the national wave of attacks on education.

Read more on the occupation here

Send messages of solidarity to:

email: jadebaker_@hotmail.co.uk or

ring/text: 07595 738 396

The National Wave begins!

Over 200 staff and students at the University of Westminster have protested, stormed the board of governors meeting and are currently in occupation, vice-chancellors office, in regard to recently proposed tutoring and administrative job cuts… [read more]

18:00-19:00

LUU ARC Conference hall

A LUU-run event, and likely to be the usual in stage-managed evasiveness. Interesting for those who want to know what the management’s current position is on their reversal over job cuts.

The facebook page for the event is here.

Ye Are Many, They Are Few

Wednesday 03 March

19:30-23:00

Riley Smith Hall, Leeds University Union

Higher Education is being attacked. The £915 million that the government is threatening to cut from the HE budget would, in the words of our Vice Chancellor, will “have a devastating effect [...] on students and staff”. Leeds UCU have been driven to strike in fear of losing their jobs.

But instead of just getting angry, theScribe Magazine (in association with Leeds University Against Cuts) is hosting a night of music, theatre, comedy, poetry, art and photography – creative arts in general. There will be performances and exhibitions from all kinds of students, societies and guests. We will come together in our opposition to cuts.

If you would like to get involved with organising or performing, or know people who would, please email scribeleeds@gmail.com.

We are not alone in doing this. Hull and Sussex are putting on sister nights, and the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts has agreed to put them on as well. We are part of a broader movement that insists on being heard – and Leeds is the place that is getting this kind of event rolling across the country.

Acts confirmed so far:

Poetry from members of theScribe magazine.
Acoustic folk from members of FolkSoc.
Stand up comedy.
Music from:

Danny and the Lost Souls- Getting you on your feet with soul, funk and rock ‘n’ roll.

Cables Cause Fires- Indie rock to get your feet tapping and your heads rocking.

Blue Wickeds- Bradford-based post-punk rock and rollers.

Elijah at Sea- Leeds uni based folk-rock sea shanty singalongs.

Join the Facebook group here

Will be a great night out, invite one and all, cya there!

There will be a regional rally and demonstration on Thursday 4 March both to recognise the determination and strength of all members at Leeds and as part of the national union’s ‘Defend jobs, defend education’ campaign. The rally will start at 1pm in the Victoria Gardens, Leeds central. Speakers include UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt and UCU President, Alastair Hunter alongside Leeds UCU Officers and local MPs. Please make every effort to attend, bring your colleagues, your friends and family.

Students from Leeds Uni, Leeds Met, and Leeds City College will be going along to show our support. Meet at Parky Steps at 12.30 and we’ll walk down together to the Rally and give the staff confidence as we turn up on mass in support of their cause.

Join the facebook group here